«The Belly of an Architect» (1987)

 Everything’s permissible for art

An American architect Stourley Kracklite and his wife Louisa are coming to Rome, and the former is entrusted with organizing of exhibition about the XVIIIth century French architect Etienne-Louis Boullee. Stourley is excited about this possibility, but the world is starting to crumble around him, and it all starts... with severe stomach pains. What not-so-known American architect can do about it.

Rome, without any exaggerating, is the cradle of the Western civilization. It has numerous museums, statues, archeological digs, exhibitions and etc., and millions of tourists come to visit them annually. The artists also draw their inspiration from Ancient Rome. Nevertheless, what can we say about modern Rome? It’s like almost any other big city is the city of blood, meat and money.

Monumental art is always funded by big money and history knows many examples when this money is not very clean. Just remember that the Renaissance artists were funded, among other things, by the corrupt cardinals and by the shady bankers. Cinema also could be financed by dirty money or used for money laundering; it even concerns such films as «The Wolf of Wall Street» (check 1MDB scandal).

Additionally, history is full of the artists, who were not very revered by the contemporaries, but whose work became influential for the next generation of the artists. Their legacy is presented in professional books, but the general audience has a very limited recollection of their life and work. Still, from time to time even such artists are getting exhibitions, and the public are introduced to their work.

The film draws a parallel between the vocations of architect and film director. Among other things, both vocations are requiring knowledge of the technical stuff (strength of materials for architects and physics of sound for film directors), people management skills and, the most important of all, they require substantial financial backing. In this aspect, struggling architect Stourley Kracklite is akin to struggling film directors from such films as «8 1/2», «The Public Woman» and « Beware of a Holy Whore».

Every artist has a specific old master, who inspires, and the latter’s work is heavily referenced in the former’s creative activity (Fritz Lang for Jean-Luc Godard, Dario Argento for Nicolas Winding Refn). In the course of the movie, Stourley Kracklite becomes so obsessed with Etienne-Louis Boullee that he thinks that his life is beginning to parallel the life of the great predecessor.

As it was written before, architecture and cinema are very expensive and «The Belly of an Architect» captures the constant clash between money and pure art. The history knows a lot of examples when the creation was taken from the author and changed to the point of absolute noncompliance with the original vision, but it still retained the author’s name (the first version of «Heaven’s Gate» or the American cut of «Once Upon a Time in America»). Will Stourley Kracklite be able to preserve his vision? Watch and find the answer.

Summarizing all of the above, «The Belly of an Architect» is a beautiful and mesmerizing portrait of artist’s struggle in the Eternal City. I recommend you to watch it.